Minute To Win It Preview: NBC Series Premiere

This Sunday night, NBC will premiere the first episode of their new game show Minute to Win It. We have some video clips from the show, as well as some photos to share with those of you who are excited to see how this new show works.

While some game shows showcase the mental or physical expertise of their contestants, MtWI is all about celebrating the average joe. Each contestant is tasked to perform a bunch of random games. If they can perform the task in under a minute, they gain money and a chance to advance in the game. Below is NBC’s description for the series, which includes a few examples of the types of games you’ll see on the show.

NBC’s new competition show Minute to Win It, hosted by All-American chef and television personality Guy Fieri (Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives), features competitors participating in a series of simple, yet nerve-wracking, games that can lead to a $1 million prize.

In each one-hour episode competitors will face 10 challenges that escalate in level of difficulty using everyday household items. Each game has a one minute time limit and failure to finish the task on time will eliminate the contestant. At various points throughout the game, the competitor can walk away with the money earned up to that point - but it'll take nerves of steel to complete all 10 tasks to win $1 million. The competitors, who come from all walks of life, are shown over 60 games prior to the competition and are encouraged to practice these one-of-a-kind challenges at home.

Some of the challenges include:

HANKY PANKY – Using only one hand, the competitor must pull tissues out of a tissue box one-at-a-time until the box is empty.

JUNK IN THE TRUNK - A belt with an empty tissue box is attached around the competitor’s waist and positioned against the contestant’s back with the hole facing outwards. Ping-pong balls are placed inside the tissue box and the competitor must jump and wiggle to shake the balls out of the box without letting his hands touch the ground. All balls must be out of the box to complete the challenge.

EGG ROLL - Contestant must move three eggs across the floor and into a target area only by “fanning” the eggs with an empty pizza box.

BOBBLE HEAD - A pedometer is attached to the competitor’s head and he must move his head to rack up a total number of steps to complete the game.

MOVIN' ON UP - Contestant is given a stack of 49 blue plastic cups with a red cup on the bottom. He must race to move the one red cup to the top by holding the stack and continuously moving the cups, one-by-one, from the top to the bottom through the entire stack.

NBC was kind enough to send along some materials for this new show, including instructions on a few of the games and the items I’d need to use to try them out. I opted to give “Separation Anxiety” a try and found the task fairly simple and strangely fun. The object of the game was to separate M&Ms by color and put them into glasses using only one hand. The M&M’s had to be put in one at a time and in order of color. If I messed up the order or putting the an M&M into the wrong glass, I failed. Fortunately, the task was simple enough that that didn’t happen.

I set up the glasses together, though I suspect in the actual game the glasses are supposed to be further apart, and poured out the bag of M&M’s that came with the instructions.

I knew just looking at the M&M’s that I was in trouble. There were definitely fewer red M&Ms than almost every other color. As the browns weren’t being used, I only had to worry about the other colors. All the same, I set the clock and went to work. And this was the end result.

Sure enough, I ran out of reds before the minute was up. I just kept going with the other colors I had and though I wasn’t able to get all of them into the glasses before the minute was up, I did manage to stick to the right order and not misplace an M&M.

Riveting, I know but this is the sort of thing you can expect to see the contestants doing in the hopes of winning some cash-money.

Minute To Win It premieres Sunday, March 14 on NBC (7-9 p.m. ET) on NBC.